welcome to your rule—there's no turning back
by queenforbes
Summary: Mary, Queen of Scots, makes her slow descent into darkness, all lipstick smiles and dangerous heels. She's ice cold now, thank you but no thank you for your hospitality, now would someone have this pathetic man killed, please? / the time everyone Mary is closest to is killed off and she is left alone to feed the demons raging inside her heart.


**A/N:** So this was a bitch. I wrote most of this up on my phone and then proceeded to angst and wail about it because I couldn't think of any successful way of finishing it and then LU FANTASTIC WONDERFUL ABSOLUTELY EXQUISITE LU - forbesfabulous, by the way - helped me out and if you like this, you can thank her!

Okay, so new episode of Reign which I can't wait for but y'see, I was looking forward to Mary becoming really dark and cold. They've changed it up a bit with the whole Francis thing going on but I still have hope! And there's always fanfiction!

So I hope you all enjoy this because I haven't written in such a long time - too much work, _gah_ - and it's been making me go insane but hopefully, I'll find time to write once I've gotten everything in my life in order. Enjoy!

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**welcome to your rule—there's no turning back**

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_"Every now and then she makes you just a little bit crazy._

_She'll turn the knife into your back and then she's calling you 'baby'._

_Crazy."_

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You don't just feel the cold.

Snowflakes, soft and pure as your heart once was, drift slowly down until they push themselves into a soggy mush into your heels. The wind picks up, howling and tearing and biting and ripping straight into you yet you stay standing right where you are because you are a _queen_.

"Please, please, Your Majesty—I beg of you," one of them pleads.

Find your humanity.

You're a monster.

_Please, please, please, don't—have mercy, have—have mercy—_

She raises a hand, one hand that has seen through blood and terror and hate and felt warmth and cold and pain. Stares patiently at the pleading eyes, the shaky hands, the feverish prayers drifting from lips that have done no wrong. Her heart, a pathetic, dull thing, beats slowly and she finds herself looking at a young boy who stares straight back at her unflinchingly. She makes up her mind and lowers her hand and nods to the executioner.

One swift hiss through the air and there's a dull thud. Another but it's stuck in the neck, so there's a sickly sound of the executioner sawing relentlessly through the gristle and bone. Another dull thud. Heads will roll today.

Mary, Queen of Scotland, doesn't feel the cold. She _is_ the cold.

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"You had them _executed_!" Catherine de Medici exclaims. She strides across the room to make sure the doors are closed securely and closes her eyes. "Mary, you are—,"

"Francis' wife, I know," Mary interrupts and her voice is cold as the pained howl of wolves craving sweet release from the pale moon. "I am reminded of this every single day but he is not here so I must act _for_ him."

Catherine looks at her. "I was going to say you were a _queen_. You are not afforded the luxury of breaking apart."

On the contrary, Catherine, the seams of her soul are not splitting, Mary smiles a wolfish rouge smile. "I know I'm the Queen."

The former Queen of France looks a little apprehensive. Mary waves a hand of dismissal and walks to her window, staring down at the castle staff working. Ignoring the dismissal, Catherine wonders where the little girl, who used to climb trees and pull faces at the dinner table and ruin the pillows, is. This new Mary, this Mary with an array of secrets all carefully pressed into her heart, all dangerous smiles and delicious schemes. She runs with the wolves now and they're all hungering for a bite.

A little boy trips over some stones.

Mary smiles coldly.

Keep working, little peasants, lest your Queen come a-hunting.

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You see, it all started when they went after Kenna.

Kenna, so pretty, so beautiful, isn't she? Kenna, who prefers never to wield a sword, instead breathes in dreams of riches and shining knights and beauty. Kenna smiles so brightly now, a big beautiful smile that grows warmer when she's in the arms of her husband. Lips that have touched and twisted themselves with warmth and_ I love you, Bash_ and light.

Across the ballroom, Mary swallows.

Kenna, one of Mary's closest friends, nods, _yes, yes, Mary, I'll do it for you. I'll sneak into that whorehouse, I'll find those papers, I'll get them to you by tonight._

Tonight, Mary paces in her rooms and the moon's laughing at her, it's got a secret because it knows, you see, it knows—

"Mary, what have you done?" Bash bursts through her doors, not so much as a _Your Majesty_ or_ My Queen_. "Where is Kenna?" He brandishes a note, exquisitely curly scripts of_ I'll be right back, Bash _and _don't worry_ and _don't forget you owe me a new dress_.

She's rotting in the castle cemetery now, in her new dress. Her husband is right by her side.

_Mary, what have you done?_

Mary cries herself to sleep for two weeks.

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There's an enemy within these walls, Catherine warns. We'll need to cut it down before it grows any bigger. We may have to use methods that will not play so nicely with your moral conscience.

Mary remembers Kenna smiling up at her husband. "Anything goes," she says and her heart is seized by an iron thorn.

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Autumn falls with whispers of happier nightmares and light of hope. Kenna and Bash's absence is less heavy. Mary and Catherine chase down anything that resembles a serpent—and Mary looks the other way when they rip off its scales.

And then Greer goes missing.

So does Nostradamus, Leith, Lola, and the baby.

There's a frenzy in the castle now. Francis hurries back to find a stone Mary, with ice for a heart and battle plans in her fingertips. Every face hangs with tension and worry. Catherine extends her iron fist to increase her search, Francis threatens to burn down the world to find them and Mary refuses to cry.

Two weeks later, while Mary is sitting out near the lake, head filled with echoes of childhood innocence and_ is that Francis_ and _we've got to get our queen engaged._ She closes her eyes and when she opens them, there are four people swimming in the lake. The Queen of Scotland rises up to get a better look and a _baby_ is suddenly thrown at her feet, bloody and pathetic and a soft lump of flesh.

Mary starts to scream.

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The funerals are quiet and the castle is even quieter.

Half the royals leave in the dark of the night, Francis locks himself into the nursery and dragons begin to ignite the thorns in Mary's heart. They flit around the ice, lock it up with flames and stamp out the innocence, for good measure.

Catherine bursts into Mary's rooms, _where is Francis, where is my son, where is he_—

Mary finds herself a widow that night.

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"What did you want?"

Mary seizes the poker from the guard and slams it into the right kneecap of the Scottish knight. Blood trickles out as he howls but Mary barely flinches. Flashes of a baby, a soft and innocent little boy, made up of her husband and her close friend, thrown at her feet like a stone scream into her mind.

Mary presses harder on the poker.

"Please, Your Highness, I did nothing—please, I didn't do anything—have mercy—HAVE MERCY—I BEG YOU—,"

"_Liar_!" Mary roars and her chest is filled with a heavy sort of ache, a numbness now because the dragons have left, taking their warmth and fire with them. "YOU'RE LYING!"

Her guards are wary, watching their mad queen lose her mind.

Who cares anymore?

She rules two countries with an icy heart and an empty dinner table. _You're a monster,_ they whisper._ Bloody Mary,_ parents say to scare their children into submission. Your soul is blackened and rotting like your friends in the cemetery and you possess no mercy, no _humanity _anymore.

Mary yanks out the poker.

"Please, Your Majesty, I beg you—I have children and—," the knight is gasping.

Mary looks at him. She gives him a moment to breathe—and then punctures his eye.

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Surprise, Your Majesties.

This is a siege.

We have you outnumbered and surrounded.

Kindly do exactly as we say and nobody will get hurt.

Queen Mary, why hello there. Call off your guards, sit down on your throne and keep your pretty little mouth shut. Before we kill everyone in here.

"You're making a mistake, you know," Mary says calmly, adjusting her skirts and brushing them down as she sits in her throne.

"I don't think so." Pretty little Penelope smiles. "I think this is turning out exactly as I wanted." She lifts her skirts and walks towards Mary, still smiling. "You see, right now, I have the lovely Queen Catherine locked in her chambers, all of your guards helpless, you stuck on your throne and all of your closest friends rotting in the castle cemetery." Her voice is biting and laced with something bitter as she moves around, light and delicate.

"You're still making a mistake." Mary's fingers drift lazily on the arm of her throne as she stares haughtily down at Penelope.

Penelope ignores her and moves to pluck the crown off Mary's head. "You've no right to speak, Mary," she says airily, resting the crown on her own head.

Mary's lips quirk. She remembers her mother once telling her, _you do not need a crown to be queen—that's why you can't take it to the ball tonight._

"Ah, this is nice, isn't it?" Penelope sails around the throne room and smiles. "I always wanted to be a princess, you know. But being _queen_, you have all the control."

Mary lets out a breath.

"Oh, am I _boring_ you?" Penelope asks, face impassive but her eyes flash with annoyance.

"Just a bit." Mary tilts her head.

"Well, then. I'm sure you'll be absolutely fascinated to listen to exactly how I got rid of your friends."

Mary stiffens.

"Well, that got your attention, didn't it?" Penelope claps her hands together, satisfied. "After you humiliated me and threw me out, I decided I'd ruin you. You know, break you and then steal your throne for myself. To break you—well, that took a _certain_ kind of discretion. First came lovely little Kenna. Ah, Kenna with her fairy tale marriage—I made you send her into a whorehouse, because who else other than quick thinking and beautiful Kenna would have made it?"

Mary swallows. She remembers the indecision—_which do you choose, Your Majesty? Your head or your heart? Kenna can get you the papers you need but she's your friend._

"I had her killed in there and what luck because her husband came marching in and he got himself a grave as well! And that was just the beginning. I had to make sure you felt guilty. And you did. Oh, the guilt—it _ate_ away at you! So I gave you two weeks."

Penelope smiles.

"Little Greer was next. Oh, that one was good because you see, I had your servants whisper about their queen not being able to protect her ladies. The result? More guilt! Then bye bye Nostradamus, Leith, Lola and—the baby! The baby! It was fun dropping them into the lake. You screamed so loudly I knew you'd get nightmares for months. And the _baby_!"

Mary remembers the nightmares—soft, innocent and bloodied flesh peeling in her hands, _why did you kill us, Mary,_ rivers tainted with the red that pours from her friends, blank eyes that won't stop staring at her, _Mary, what have you done_, _blood_ _blood_ _blood_ on _her_ hands, in _her_ nails—

"The baby was what really killed Francis, you know. I know you felt it too, Mary. You couldn't give him a child so he felt for his little bastard. After the bastard died, you couldn't get through to your husband, could you? He was distraught and you could do nothing to help him! Oh, how _useless_ you felt!" Penelope crows happily.

"Useless and guilty and pathetic." She tuts. "Ooh, bad combination for a queen. The nobles were leaving, you had nobody for you—even the servants wouldn't stay for longer than five minutes in the same room as you! Nobody likes you! You made everyone scared! Especially with that whole messy business of brutally killing your Scottish and French Knights, to find out what I'd done."

Penelope laughs. "It was _gorgeous_. And now you're caught like a fly in my web."

"You're still making the same mistake—,"

"What _mistake_?" Penelope screams. "I broke you! I destroyed you! Why do you keep talking about mistakes? You were dark and pathetic and useless and—,"

"Poor little peasant Penelope," Mary tuts. "Still making the same—,"

"Don't—what the hell is wrong with you?!" Penelope shouts. "_What mistake?"_

"The one where you think that I didn't know about you trying to break me, where you underestimate my relationship with Catherine, where you think I'm useless and guilty and what was that last one?" Mary smiles. "Oh, yes. _Pathetic_."

Penelope stares. "What?"

"A true queen remains unbroken and steady," Mary supplies. "You're not very good at covering your tracks so it didn't take me too long to find out your plan. You have the castle surrounded, you say? By whom? _Your_ people?"

Penelope blinks. "Of—of course it's my people."

"You don't sound too sure, Penny," Mary tells her, settling into her throne comfortably. "What makes you think I didn't infiltrate your people from the very beginning? What makes you think I actually condemned all those Knights to death?"

"But—but you did," Penelope says, uncertainty laced into her voice. "I had people—I sent rumours, I—I broke you!"

Mary stands up and even without her crown, she is formidable, eyes cold and unforgiving. "What makes you think_ I_ can be broken, you pathetic, arrogant _peasant_?"

.

.

Penelope's blood runs deep along the walls of the castle dungeons.

Catherine pretends not to see Mary's bloodied hands, Mary's dead eyes, Mary's cold tone as she condemns another hundred to slaughter to save a thousand. Instead, she gives Mary's crown to her ladies and tells them to scrub the peasant right off it.

Mary screams with the demons.

Catherine wishes Nostradamus were here—he'd supply her with those life-saving herbs that had done more than enough for Catherine's insomnia. She urges Mary to eat more and watches as the queen stares at the fork—_"my mother wants us to learn how to use these things. Forks."—_and promptly leaves.

_We have a monster instead of a queen_, someone whispers in an upturned tavern—one that had, incidentally, been occupied by the late King of France himself, watching soldiers destroy the place, setting it aflame, just as their Queen demanded.

_People are depending on you to feed them, to help them, Your Majesty,_ her advisors tell her as she continues to calmly push her breakfast around and replies with a quiet, _I know_ and raises her voice to say, _I am your Queen and you should know that I know exactly what I am doing._

_But, perhaps, your grief has—_

Mary throws the torch towards Bash and Kenna's home herself.

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"Who _are_ you?" Catherine stares at Mary, searching the young girl's face.

Mary lets out a hollow chuckle. "A _queen_. This is what you wanted me to be, Catherine, so why aren't you happy? You said to get rid of my pesky conscience, my idiotic morals. Do what I think is best for my country." She shrugs. "Well, I've done it."

"You had an entire tavern burned to the ground."

"I don't need to explain myself to you."

"The nobles think you've gone insane. The servants barely risk coming anywhere near you. Every other country is too terrified to trifle with you and—,"

"Good," Mary interrupts. "That's good. Exactly what I wanted. Everyone _should_ be terrified of me."

"No, they shouldn't!" Catherine snaps, anger lacing her tone. "It has been three months, Mary, and I understand that you have lost people. I've lost people as well, my _son_ included, and do you see me breaking apart?"

"I am _not_ breaking apart!"

Mary's hand flies out. A glass shatters. "I am Mary, Queen of Scotland and France. I have sent my close friend and her husband into the lion's den. I have lived through the dark days of waiting for news of my closest friends and having them floating up in the moat that is supposed to have protected them. I have felt a dead baby's cold, _cold_ flesh. My husband's child. I have felt the pain that comes when one of your best advisors arrives to tell you that your husband has been stabbed in the nursery of his illegitimate child. I am Mary, Queen of Scotland and France and I am _strong_. I will not feel pain any longer. I choose not to. And if I wish to inflict—if I wish to bring justice—if I want to show—I—I—,"

Mary falters and Catherine thinks she sees the little girl in her grass-stained dress again. The little girl with the too-big teeth fitting over her sunny smile and the twigs in her hair from climbing trees she knows she shouldn't. But then Mary blinks and she thinks it might have been just a trick of the candle light flickering against the walls.

"I will rule exactly how I want to." She brushes down her already-pristine gown, her slim fingers lacing together elegantly, perfectly as she has been taught. Like a well-trained robot. "How I must."

Catherine watches her leave and finds herself loathing how there is barely no trace of the innocent little girl, who used to run around the castle halls and terrorise the servants, left. But still—a small, bloodthirsty part of her is proud. She looks at Mary and sees herself.

That's the night the streets of France shine red, the night an innocent little Scottish girl, with eyes like the light of stars and a heart softened by warm love, dies and a detached, hard-hearted Queen, with dead eyes and numb like mountains topped with ice cold snow, replaces her.

Catherine makes a vow to herself to light a candle for the little Scottish girl that used to smile and laugh, every year alongside Francis'.

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**fin**


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